Drawing, Part I - Backstory
A personal essay of sorts I wanted to record:
Red Shoe, Blue Shoe: Call Things What They Are
A lengthy history of my relationship with my sister and art
When I was a wee sprout of an only child, I was doted on and all my various efforts in life - to become toilet trained, to doggie paddle in the pool, to eat the Playdough, to draw - were lauded and exclaimed over.
That's what being an only/first-born child is like, after all.
But my mother didn't want one child - she wanted at least TWO. And she finally convinced my father of the wisdom of this idea. (Mostly, I think, because the contraception failed, and while my parents are pro-choice, they don't personally seem big on abortion.)
Along came the Brat, Nicole, when I was 3½ years old. Just at the outer edge of that period when two children from the same family both essentially become only children. Sometimes, Nicole and I act as if we are closer in age; sometimes we act as if the age gap is greater. It's awkward; particularly competition between us, because we've reached different points so far apart from each other that it often wouldn't seem fair to compare.
But we do.
::
Very early, there was an established pattern. I was linguistically inclined; I spoke early, spoke well, and spoke at great length. Before I even knew how to read, I was begging my mother to teach me the alphabet so that I could write down stories. She taught me the sounds produced by each individual letter, and I took crayon to paper not to draw, but to produce phonetically-spelled versions of the tales in my head.
I did create many of the usual childhood drawings: plump figures with stick limbs; smiling suns; square little houses with square little windows; trees with masses of scribbled green leaves and little red apple balls. But mostly, I wrote. The things I had to say never quite came through my drawings (often abandoned half-way through as I clarified in writing instead); they got lost somewhere in the lines and shapes which never quite came out right.
My sister, by contrast, barely bothered to pass through that stage they call "scribbling." Quieter, she was far more interested than I was in depicting her thoughts in wordless symbol; for all I know, at least partially because she could never get a word in edgewise when I was around. She produced representational drawings as precociously as I spoke. It didn't go unnoticed by our parents, her preschool teachers, my mother's friends, or our extended family.
I heard early what an excellent little artist my sister was shaping up to be, and was puzzled. From my childish viewpoint, my sister's art honestly stank. She used many wrong colors, didn't stay in the lines, and her dog looked like a horse. Or maybe an elephant.
When Nicole was four and I was seven, the noise made over her artwork was so loud that I peevishly decided to show her up; since, after all, I still had the advantage of technical skill. (Something I was privately aware wasn't going to last.) Every art project she made, I mimicked and improved on, slyly presenting my parents with my more sophisticated version after Nicole had presented hers.
To my general confusion, my attempts weren't well-received. Neither were my more honestly original works of art. It's not that my parents weren't somewhat pleased I was producing art as I should be for my age; it's just that mine were average and age-appropriate and therefore far less exciting than my sister's.
Each drawing my sister made was hung in a place of honor on that classic suburban art gallery: the refrigerator door. Once, my sister made my father a toilet-paper tube mouse sculpture that he took to work with great pride and stapled to his cubicle wall; something that he took care to show the both of us when we visited his office on a day we had no school.
I promptly made him a toilet-paper tube giraffe to take to work. The legs and neck were quite droopy, but still, you could tell it was a giraffe. Unlike that sick-looking mouse.
Dad didn't seem inclined to look up from his newspaper, but I figured he was busy. He also didn't seem inclined to put it in his briefcase, so I did it for him.
Lucky or unlucky twist of fate for me: my sister and I got a chance to visit his office cubicle again a day or so later. My giraffe, I noted, had not made the transition to a place of honor on my father's cubicle wall beside the mouse. Some discreet sleuthing finally located it: in my father's cubicle trash can, not yet emptied by the building staff.
Finally, I grasped and accepted the intended message: better than my sister meant nothing when adjusted for age. For a seven-year-old, my art was average and not particularly worthy of display. My parents were intensely proud of the fact that both my sister and I were bright ("gifted" in the language of academically-preoccupied education researchers) and individually talented; while they didn't push too much, they also didn't much care to watch us plod along in areas that didn't properly display us.
I mentally crossed "art" off my list of things to continue to work at, and stopped drawing almost everything that wasn't required for school. I focused instead more intensely on my writing and anything else I could do with reasonable skill.
It didn't take more than a few years for it to become fixed in cement that my sister was the family Artist, and I was the family Writer, and in our assigned roles we were expected to stay.
::
It's not that my father was much less forgiving with me than he was with my sister; it just came out in different places. My sister was indeed my father's favourite (never once has he wanted a son), but this was something subtle I only picked up in my teens. And then, I was my mother's favourite. My sister had endless cheap art lessons paid for; I had my parents shell out a few grand for me to attend one of Canada's best summer theatre camps. It evened out.
(I won't say that I necessarily agree with my father's high-expectations style of parenting. Throwing out my artwork because it wasn't good enough, tossing a Christmas gift of mine that he didn't like behind the couch - those are not things I'd do with my own child. But I was not particularly singled out.)
My parents, it should be pointed out, didn't much encourage my sister to write.
::
One remaining sour point: during a sixth-grade art lesson in realistic drawing, I gave up on my hopeless attempts, and - when the instructor's back was turned - traced the leaf I'd been given to draw.
That particular piece was given a gold star and framed excitedly by my teacher on construction paper. When I got home, my mother hung it on the refrigerator - the one and only piece I ever had hung there following the birth of my sister. (Sometimes, when I brought large works home from school - acrylic paintings, for example - they were hung with great ceremony in the laundry room, on the wall behind the cleaning supplies.)
Over the years, my sister's displayed works on the fridge changed frequently. My sister seemed to decide that the surface of the fridge was her own; she hung up her own pieces as she got older, and took them down as she grew dissatisfied with them, replacing them with fresher efforts.
My cheated leaf, hanging at a slight angle as if tilting guiltily away from my sister's work, hung unreplaced in the same spot for the next 8 years until my family moved across the city following my parent's divorce. At which point, I believe, it was thrown out.
::
Possibly, I've made all of that sound more upsetting than it actually was at the time. In all honesty, it wasn't something that ever cut that deeply; some minor childhood wounds which have long since become fairly amusing and potential material for a comedic set of memoirs, à la David Sedaris or similar.
I'd settled with a certain easiness into the role of Writer by the time I was in my mid-teens, although I had decided that actually, what I really wanted to be was an actor. I just figured I'd write some best-selling novels on the side, or something like that.
My sister, of course, was going to be an artist of some sort. There were no questions there.
Then my sister did something completely unexpected one day: she decided to write a story. Not for school. Just because...she wanted to write a story. So she did. About dragons. Which she anxiously showed me, to get my expert advice.
It was pretty good. Not stunning. But still good.
Which I told her - although perhaps not with the greatest enthusiasm. She grimly took it back, and, I believe, failed to write much more on her own despite later reassurances on my part that it was good - really! - and she ought to continue. More encouragement from my parents eventually resulted in a sequel, but they didn't rush out to buy her writing notebooks, as they did for me. There were not many more dragon stories.
What had unsettled me enough to damper my review was the realization that writing, honestly, is not particularly hard to pick up. Certainly we can't all be Shakespeare. But a great many of us, if we were so inclined, could become columnists, novelists, playwrites. It's a skill we're all supposed to leave school equipped with. It's far more universal a skill set than drawing or painting.
And hey, I'm no Shakespeare, either.
So: my sister could draw. And my sister could write.
I could only write.
The problem here, I'm sure, is quite apparent.
::
Have my sister and I ever rebelled against our roles? I'd say "yes," for myself - my most long-standing refusal to write having directly followed my sister's writing of the dragon story. I stopped keeping any real writing notebooks or journals other than my Livejournal (which is not really a medium for fine writing). I spent years refusing to consider anything related to writing for my major, even taking an essay my first college English professor wanted me to enter in a contest and throwing it away.
I'm still not completely sure where "the Writer" fits into how I see myself. How much of any ambition to write is really my own?
My sister, I might have said, accepted her position more easily - but then, I don't really know if she has. She continues daily to draw, and yet she flunked out of high school a semester before the end, and shows no real sign yet of being ready to attend art school.
I think sometimes that neither of us has the faintest idea what point we got started from, or where we are meant to end up. More importantly though, I don't think we have a clue what direction we're facing, what speed we're moving at, or even just exactly where we are.
::
I know that's supposed to be "normal," but common human uncertainties are no less bewildering because no one else knows the answer, either.
Red Shoe, Blue Shoe: Call Things What They Are
A lengthy history of my relationship with my sister and art
When I was a wee sprout of an only child, I was doted on and all my various efforts in life - to become toilet trained, to doggie paddle in the pool, to eat the Playdough, to draw - were lauded and exclaimed over.
That's what being an only/first-born child is like, after all.
But my mother didn't want one child - she wanted at least TWO. And she finally convinced my father of the wisdom of this idea. (Mostly, I think, because the contraception failed, and while my parents are pro-choice, they don't personally seem big on abortion.)
Along came the Brat, Nicole, when I was 3½ years old. Just at the outer edge of that period when two children from the same family both essentially become only children. Sometimes, Nicole and I act as if we are closer in age; sometimes we act as if the age gap is greater. It's awkward; particularly competition between us, because we've reached different points so far apart from each other that it often wouldn't seem fair to compare.
But we do.
::
Very early, there was an established pattern. I was linguistically inclined; I spoke early, spoke well, and spoke at great length. Before I even knew how to read, I was begging my mother to teach me the alphabet so that I could write down stories. She taught me the sounds produced by each individual letter, and I took crayon to paper not to draw, but to produce phonetically-spelled versions of the tales in my head.
I did create many of the usual childhood drawings: plump figures with stick limbs; smiling suns; square little houses with square little windows; trees with masses of scribbled green leaves and little red apple balls. But mostly, I wrote. The things I had to say never quite came through my drawings (often abandoned half-way through as I clarified in writing instead); they got lost somewhere in the lines and shapes which never quite came out right.
My sister, by contrast, barely bothered to pass through that stage they call "scribbling." Quieter, she was far more interested than I was in depicting her thoughts in wordless symbol; for all I know, at least partially because she could never get a word in edgewise when I was around. She produced representational drawings as precociously as I spoke. It didn't go unnoticed by our parents, her preschool teachers, my mother's friends, or our extended family.
I heard early what an excellent little artist my sister was shaping up to be, and was puzzled. From my childish viewpoint, my sister's art honestly stank. She used many wrong colors, didn't stay in the lines, and her dog looked like a horse. Or maybe an elephant.
When Nicole was four and I was seven, the noise made over her artwork was so loud that I peevishly decided to show her up; since, after all, I still had the advantage of technical skill. (Something I was privately aware wasn't going to last.) Every art project she made, I mimicked and improved on, slyly presenting my parents with my more sophisticated version after Nicole had presented hers.
To my general confusion, my attempts weren't well-received. Neither were my more honestly original works of art. It's not that my parents weren't somewhat pleased I was producing art as I should be for my age; it's just that mine were average and age-appropriate and therefore far less exciting than my sister's.
Each drawing my sister made was hung in a place of honor on that classic suburban art gallery: the refrigerator door. Once, my sister made my father a toilet-paper tube mouse sculpture that he took to work with great pride and stapled to his cubicle wall; something that he took care to show the both of us when we visited his office on a day we had no school.
I promptly made him a toilet-paper tube giraffe to take to work. The legs and neck were quite droopy, but still, you could tell it was a giraffe. Unlike that sick-looking mouse.
Dad didn't seem inclined to look up from his newspaper, but I figured he was busy. He also didn't seem inclined to put it in his briefcase, so I did it for him.
Lucky or unlucky twist of fate for me: my sister and I got a chance to visit his office cubicle again a day or so later. My giraffe, I noted, had not made the transition to a place of honor on my father's cubicle wall beside the mouse. Some discreet sleuthing finally located it: in my father's cubicle trash can, not yet emptied by the building staff.
Finally, I grasped and accepted the intended message: better than my sister meant nothing when adjusted for age. For a seven-year-old, my art was average and not particularly worthy of display. My parents were intensely proud of the fact that both my sister and I were bright ("gifted" in the language of academically-preoccupied education researchers) and individually talented; while they didn't push too much, they also didn't much care to watch us plod along in areas that didn't properly display us.
I mentally crossed "art" off my list of things to continue to work at, and stopped drawing almost everything that wasn't required for school. I focused instead more intensely on my writing and anything else I could do with reasonable skill.
It didn't take more than a few years for it to become fixed in cement that my sister was the family Artist, and I was the family Writer, and in our assigned roles we were expected to stay.
::
It's not that my father was much less forgiving with me than he was with my sister; it just came out in different places. My sister was indeed my father's favourite (never once has he wanted a son), but this was something subtle I only picked up in my teens. And then, I was my mother's favourite. My sister had endless cheap art lessons paid for; I had my parents shell out a few grand for me to attend one of Canada's best summer theatre camps. It evened out.
(I won't say that I necessarily agree with my father's high-expectations style of parenting. Throwing out my artwork because it wasn't good enough, tossing a Christmas gift of mine that he didn't like behind the couch - those are not things I'd do with my own child. But I was not particularly singled out.)
My parents, it should be pointed out, didn't much encourage my sister to write.
::
One remaining sour point: during a sixth-grade art lesson in realistic drawing, I gave up on my hopeless attempts, and - when the instructor's back was turned - traced the leaf I'd been given to draw.
That particular piece was given a gold star and framed excitedly by my teacher on construction paper. When I got home, my mother hung it on the refrigerator - the one and only piece I ever had hung there following the birth of my sister. (Sometimes, when I brought large works home from school - acrylic paintings, for example - they were hung with great ceremony in the laundry room, on the wall behind the cleaning supplies.)
Over the years, my sister's displayed works on the fridge changed frequently. My sister seemed to decide that the surface of the fridge was her own; she hung up her own pieces as she got older, and took them down as she grew dissatisfied with them, replacing them with fresher efforts.
My cheated leaf, hanging at a slight angle as if tilting guiltily away from my sister's work, hung unreplaced in the same spot for the next 8 years until my family moved across the city following my parent's divorce. At which point, I believe, it was thrown out.
::
Possibly, I've made all of that sound more upsetting than it actually was at the time. In all honesty, it wasn't something that ever cut that deeply; some minor childhood wounds which have long since become fairly amusing and potential material for a comedic set of memoirs, à la David Sedaris or similar.
I'd settled with a certain easiness into the role of Writer by the time I was in my mid-teens, although I had decided that actually, what I really wanted to be was an actor. I just figured I'd write some best-selling novels on the side, or something like that.
My sister, of course, was going to be an artist of some sort. There were no questions there.
Then my sister did something completely unexpected one day: she decided to write a story. Not for school. Just because...she wanted to write a story. So she did. About dragons. Which she anxiously showed me, to get my expert advice.
It was pretty good. Not stunning. But still good.
Which I told her - although perhaps not with the greatest enthusiasm. She grimly took it back, and, I believe, failed to write much more on her own despite later reassurances on my part that it was good - really! - and she ought to continue. More encouragement from my parents eventually resulted in a sequel, but they didn't rush out to buy her writing notebooks, as they did for me. There were not many more dragon stories.
What had unsettled me enough to damper my review was the realization that writing, honestly, is not particularly hard to pick up. Certainly we can't all be Shakespeare. But a great many of us, if we were so inclined, could become columnists, novelists, playwrites. It's a skill we're all supposed to leave school equipped with. It's far more universal a skill set than drawing or painting.
And hey, I'm no Shakespeare, either.
So: my sister could draw. And my sister could write.
I could only write.
The problem here, I'm sure, is quite apparent.
::
Have my sister and I ever rebelled against our roles? I'd say "yes," for myself - my most long-standing refusal to write having directly followed my sister's writing of the dragon story. I stopped keeping any real writing notebooks or journals other than my Livejournal (which is not really a medium for fine writing). I spent years refusing to consider anything related to writing for my major, even taking an essay my first college English professor wanted me to enter in a contest and throwing it away.
I'm still not completely sure where "the Writer" fits into how I see myself. How much of any ambition to write is really my own?
My sister, I might have said, accepted her position more easily - but then, I don't really know if she has. She continues daily to draw, and yet she flunked out of high school a semester before the end, and shows no real sign yet of being ready to attend art school.
I think sometimes that neither of us has the faintest idea what point we got started from, or where we are meant to end up. More importantly though, I don't think we have a clue what direction we're facing, what speed we're moving at, or even just exactly where we are.
::
I know that's supposed to be "normal," but common human uncertainties are no less bewildering because no one else knows the answer, either.